Google pays Apple $18B to $20B a year to keep its search in iPhone
Google pays Apple $18B to $20B a year to keep its search in iPhone::Bernstein estimates value of agreement, warns it and similar deals may end if DoJ wins antitrust case
https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/10/google_pays_apple_18_20_claims_bernstein/Open linkView original on lemmy.world382
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As far as I know, they bought the system with the goal of running it on mobile digital cameras and other consumer electronics (like music players).
But when they saw the iPhone, the effort to convert this system into what we now see as Android was internal and made by Google.
But I could've been fed wrong information though.
That is a lot of money for a search engine that barely works.
It barely works because it makes a lot of money
No, no. It makes aot of money because it barely works!
But that's how it's supposed to work, so it's working just fine? Amazing, actually.
That's what they need to pay to get people to use it.
When Google was released in the 90's they didn't have to pay anyone, everyone wanted to use it.
Suddenly I don't feel at all ashamed of blocking ads. 😮
You never were freeloader lmao
Won't this kill Firefox? As far as I understand Google is providing a lot of funding with the default search engine agreement.
Related: https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-investigating-the-bizarre-finances-of-mozilla
It would definitely require a substantial effort for Mozilla to find other funding. If I were Mozilla right now I would be trying to secure other deals to act as a safety net if this ruling goes through.
That said, with Firefox being open source apart from the branding another group could pick up development if Mozilla were to somehow go under. One of the popular "spins" of Firefox could become the predominant version and could see further browser development there.
It basically already has killed Firefox for normies, though. It's just taking a long time to die. Have a look at their market share over the last decade. Hopefully enough people keep using it that it stays actively developed, but that's hardly guaranteed.
It only needs enough users that Google keeps paying enough to be the default search engine.
Where's my 'invisible hand of the free market' guys?
That's literally it though
Really shows how much can be made from handling search queries doesn’t it.
Hell, I'll spread word of mouth $75,000 a year.
Welcome to a mid level sales position.
Even though I use iOS devices, Google isn’t my search engine on these devices. I can understand an organization like Mozilla needing the money from Google, but when we’re talking about a trillion dollar company, I cannot have the same understanding.
Like corporations would pass on literally tens of billions of dollars (yearly) just because they are big.
Unless Apple had it's own competing search service they have no reason to pass on that much money unless it becomes a huge liability.
I guess you’re right. And maybe most is their users are fine (or prefer) to use Google search, so that’s even a plus for Apple.
Why?
How would iPhone users feel if Google wasn't available on their phone?